All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Good
day. I'm Jim Fosson. I'm the Officer of the Deck
today here on Veterans Radio, and thanks for
joining us. We've got two great stories to tell
you today. One is on vets to drones. It's a discussion
how veterans can get involved in the drone industry.
And the second is about rating or scoring veterans
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We want to welcome to Veterans Radio Chris Lewis,
a Marine and Army vet. We're going to talk a
little bit about that, but he's involved in a
really cool effort in getting veterans into the
drone industry. Chris, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thanks, Jim. It's great to be here. Had a nice
kid like you first end up in the Marines for
about eight years, then did a couple of years
in the Army, and then moved on. Tell us about
it. Well, I am an Army Brett. I was born on Fort
Polk and I asked my mother who did 23 years in
the Army, I asked her, you know, what branch
to go into and she said, whatever you do, don't
join the Marine Corps. So naturally. Yeah, exactly.
So tell us what you did in the Marine Corps.
Did motor transport and that's kind of where
I got my first touch on drones. I was actually
deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan and
was handed a box and said, hey, you got to use
this thing. I said, what's in the box? They said
it's a drone. I was like what's a drone? 20 -year
-old Lance Corporal had no idea but we did figure
it out so ended up flying that during convoy
operations so we did security gun trucks around
long logistics convoys across Helmand province
and through the RQ -11 Raven and did persistent
ISR around the convoys whenever we went firm
at night and began to deploy in the mornings
as well. Well, it's really been an interesting
progression to watch how drones have become almost
mandatory gear in military life. You just have
to watch the nightly news and see what Russia's
doing to Ukraine and Ukraine's doing to Russia,
and the advances the U .S. is trying to get,
and actually even Taiwan I was reading about,
trying to build up a drone arsenal whether they
are in the air or in the water. to counter some
of the activities of the Chinese. So drones and
drone operation proliferates in the military
world. How did you move your military experience
with drone operations over into the civilian
world? That's a great question. I think I got
really lucky to be honest. I got out of military
2018. went to NC State using the GI Bill, was
actually given a couple of courses and projects
that involved drones, and was going to end up
in grad school doing agricultural -based research
using drones to do multispectral imagery across
North Carolina. But COVID hit, laboratory shut
down. ended up with a nice shiny piece of paper,
May of 2020, and then found a guy at the park
right here in Raleigh, and he said, do you want
to go to California and start flying robots around
and making money doing it? I said, yes. Where
do I fly, right? Exactly. Less than 48 hours
later, we were on the road in a 2002 F -150,
camping gear in tow, robots in the back, and
we drove to California where we started doing
power line inspections for the wildfire mitigation
program out there. That was my first kind of
toes getting dipped in the water, if you will.
Finished up that contract, went down to Hurricane
Dorian in Florida, same thing, power line inspections
down there. Eventually got licensed, became a
part 107 holding drone pilot, if you will, then
went out to the Midwest and started doing telecommunication
inspections across the Midwest. And that kind
of started my cycle of contracting operations
across the country. Naturally, started recruiting
other veterans into the industry, just like,
hey, I found something. It's incredible. It fits
like a glove. You won't believe it, but come
on out here with me. So I started bringing other
veterans. My brother is an Air Force veteran,
brought him with me on one of the contracts.
or several contracts. Some guys I served in the
Marine Corps with, folks I met at NC State, some
fellow veteran students, and started bringing
them out on contracts with me. And then about
two or three years of that, we met up at a bar
in San Bernardino, California during one of these
contracts with about 40 other veterans and another
drone pilot and said, hey, we're going to formalize
this kind of initiative of recruiting and we're
going to call it Vets to Drones and we're going
to start this program and start bringing other
veterans into the industry. Well it's a great
and a great idea and an advancing industry right
it's an area where you can see growth just happening
probably every month but but for the uninitiated
Chris talk about the areas that civilian drone
operators work. What industries use them these
days? Well that's a great question. There's a
variety of verticals across the industry and
everywhere you look there's opportunity. You
got to make sure you stay focused in your niche
and learn your niche early. So I started in power
line inspections. So infrastructure in general
is kind of the area of expertise I sunk my teeth
into when I first got in. Powerline inspections
with manual flight, cell tower inspections doing
digital twin recreation using autonomous orbits
around vertical structures. Then I went into
construction mapping and then I kind of started
dipping my toes into other areas as well. the
infrastructure inspection side is what we usually
push the veterans in our program towards because
there's a lot of employment and 1099 contract
opportunities in that area. This is not just
power line infrastructure, it's all types of
infrastructure, is it not? Absolutely, you have
done solar farms, cell towers, construction yards,
agricultural mapping, spreading and spraying
with agricultural drones and then with the power
lines I mean if you go outside you see them far
and wide they're all over the country so. Yeah
the agricultural application is very interesting
too because you know many folks live in the big
cities but if you drive across this country almost
in every stage, you're going to be amazed at
the level of agricultural that we have and how
knowing what's going on from an aerial point
of view would really be helpful, wouldn't it?
Absolutely. I mean, the data and imagery received
during agricultural mapping mission, especially
using multi -spectral imagery, can give you pinpoint
accuracy of where the failure points are in a
given field. It doesn't matter the size of the
acreage. We have a growing partnership with Pix4D
where some of our members are licensed instructors
for that software. We teach other veterans how
to use that as well. And then we have a new one
that's coming up with AgriMo, which is a agricultural
based software company that's designed just for
agricultural solutions in the drone space. I
was looking at some materials and it's also seems
to me that it's also being widely used in the
real estate industry and I want you to talk a
little bit about how it's being used in disaster
relief as well. Absolutely, so on the real estate
side there's been kind of hit or miss depending
on you know either you are involved in real estate
or you know realtors and they're willing to bring
you on as a part 107 holder there were some gray
areas earlier on where real estate agents were
just buying drones and flying for themselves
without getting licensed and that caused the
faa to start pinpointing people and shelling
out some pretty hefty fines so i don't recommend
doing that make sure you get licensed it's a
175 license versus a 12 000 dollar fine so um
but Great use case there. Even a Marine can figure
that out and know how that equation works. You
didn't have to talk to your brother who was Air
Force vet. He didn't listen to mom. I should
say he did listen to mom. He didn't join the
Marines. Yeah, it's written in plaguing crayons.
Easy to understand. Don't get the $12 ,000 fine.
Go for the $175 certification. You've mentioned
it a couple of times and I want to focus on this
because these aren't your toy hobby Drones line
of sight, you know, you're gonna crash them every
time you fly them. These are These are professional
commercial drones and as you mentioned you need
a license Tell us about the part 107 licensing
and your friends at the FAA Perfect. So the part
107 is the minimum certification to earn any
type of income when it comes to using drones
and operating in the national airspace It is
not that difficult. I tell people if you're okay
at land nav, you just add a z -axis to land nav
and now you're in the airspace. If you can read
a map on 2D, you add some third dimension to
it, you can figure it out. There's a couple of
trick questions. It is a federally proctored
test, but it is not that difficult to learn.
That is one thing that we provide as well as
the part 107 instruction through our program.
But it's the first step into getting into the
industry. It is far from enough to be considered
a true subject matter expert or professional
in this field, but it's a step in the right direction.
As I mentioned, this area is exploding. I think
there's some estimates of like there's gonna
be hundreds of thousands of jobs in this field
over the next 10 years. pays pretty good, 50
maybe to 100 grandish depending on who you're
signing on with or if you're running into contractors.
There's some real things that may be of interest
to veterans. You're outdoors working. You don't
have a boss, you know, hitting the time clock
over your shoulder maybe the same way. Technology.
These are all things which sort of veterans will
gravitate to. But they have to know what they're
doing and that gets us to vetstodrones .org.
Tell us what the mission of Vets to Drones is.
We're introducing veterans into the industry.
We have five core mission sets. Workforce development
is first, making sure that the veterans in our
program understand how to use these drones at
a professional capacity, whether that's manual
flight for real estate, video, photography, that
kind of thing, or doing the full data capture
and processing, and even crafting a deliverable
for their clients. After that, it's K through
12 education. Several of our members are educators
in the K through 12 realm. Others do after school
programs, drone building programs. There's even
a drone soccer league, both the US drone soccer
league, and there's a Korean derivative as well
that where they're getting kids into STEM education
using drone technology, because very exciting.
Consider it like a quidditch for drones, if you
will. Then, of course, natural disaster response,
which we can dive into. One of the concepts in
the industry is drones for good and disaster
response is one of the number one areas you can
use a drone to help people in a variety of ways.
Then there's conservation. The first project
I came up with for our program was the Veterans
in the Forest project. We started down in San
Diego and we did mapping missions. for reforestation
and we went all the way up to the Dakotas and
across to Pennsylvania and across the entire
country doing these mapping missions and then
bringing other veterans with us along the way.
It turned into a cool camping trip where you
learn how to fly drones all across the US in
different forested areas. Then our final mission
is recreational therapy. We do fly days, drone
demo days, if you will. We travel around the
country. We get together with a bunch of veterans
and just fly during the day. It's outdoors. It
has to be a pretty nice day. It's a sober environment.
And you're learning a potentially monetizable
skill. So those are our five core missions in
the Vets to Drones program. Yeah. And you can
find more about Vets to Drones by going to vetstodrones
.org. There's a lot of great information there.
As you mentioned, this is sort of a nationwide
program. Not only have you done projects all
over the country with drones and mapping and
disaster relief, but I also see that you sort
of have a regular online program discussion,
newsletters. Tell us a little bit about how you
engage veterans on a regular basis. So before
So the VA newsletter came out and our numbers
have just exploded. We've had over 100 ,000 people
reach out in a month and it's just been really
exciting. Before that, we do a weekly webinar.
We get online, we talk about the drone industry
as a whole, and we talk about problems here,
different events that are coming up, job opportunities
there, and what's going on in the industry as
a whole. So since that... insurgents, you know,
the influx of veterans coming in. We've broken
the country down into 10 different districts
and we've began assigning different district
or regional commanders, if you will, so we can
better control and understand different areas
of the country and the needs based in those areas.
You know, one of the problems of success is you
got to figure out how to deal with it, right?
Yes, yes, absolutely. So, but, you know, When
I founded this program, it wasn't that, you know,
veterans need help getting into the industry.
It's more that the industry needs help from the
veterans that have been doing this type of operation
for the, for, well, technically the Marine Corps
had the first drone program in 1989. You know,
we'll take that claim to faith. There you go.
We've had this, we have this experience or these
experiences that add into this industry as a
whole. And you know, as an American drone industry,
we're a little bit behind the curve when it comes
to manufacturing and some of the processes that
are being implemented across the industry. So
I know that the industry as a whole can use our
help and we get the right people with the brightest
minds and capable veterans in this industry to
help out. Well, it's both the technical aspect
of flying these drones, but you mentioned the
software and the data analysis, right? Because
all you're doing when you're flying is collecting
data. How does that work? Is the operator involved
in the data quality and data manipulation, or
does that get handed off to a whole other segment
of the industry? That is a great question. So
there's different levels to your kind of progression
in the industry. There's salary -based, W2 -based,
there's 1099 freelance work, and then starting
your own full -blown business. If you're doing
salary -based or W2, usually you're doing just
data collection, and there's a data processing
unit at the company that you will upload and
pass that data along to. When you get into the
1099 freelance work, you'll start touching the
data and maneuvering data a little bit more.
If you own your own small business and is your
brand out there approaching the clients, you're
collecting the data, processing the data, and
producing that deliverable for the client. So
it's not just one thing or the other. And do
you find that there are veterans going into,
hey, now that I've got my experience and sea
legs here on this, I'm going to go ahead and
start my own business. I want to be my own entrepreneur
here in this area. Is that possible? Absolutely.
I see it all the time. Many folks want to start
their own drone business and that's sometimes
how they approach us even before they have their
part 107. But what I recommend is the crawl walk
run approach. I tell exactly how I did it. I
got into the industry, got paid to learn, used
other people's equipment to learn how to maneuver
the technology and then once I built my bank
account up enough, started my own small business
and was able to pull in different contracts.
And then I continuously rotated between W2 work
and 1099 freelance and having my own small business
all at the same time to kind of get things scalable.
Yeah, you got to build momentum, build reputation,
be able to get new experiences to apply to future
experiences when somebody's got an RFP out or
asking for, hey, is this something that can be
done? I think I cut you off earlier. You mentioned
it again. I want to come back to it. And that's
the disaster relief aspect of this. It's easy
to visualize how drones are used for information
gathering in the field, in the battlefield. Tell
us how it's used in disaster relief. Perfect.
So we've responded to a hurricane every year
since 2020, at least one, right? Some tornadoes,
stuff like that as well. The first initial use
case is search and rescue. You have thermal enabled
drones. It is so much easier to get in the air
and fly with a thermal enabled drone, especially
at nighttime, and identify where people may or
may not be stranded or unreachable. definitely
unable to see them with the naked eye, right?
So that is first and foremost the most impactful
use case. Search and rescue using thermal and
night vision enabled drones directly after a
disaster. After that would be moving supplies.
So these larger drones are able to do deliveries.
Some of the agricultural drones can carry over
a hundred pounds and move supplies to and from
areas that may have been cut off. We saw it during
Hurricane Ian with Sanibel Island. They were
using full -blown Chinooks, right? We didn't
have as many delivery drones back then at our
disposal. So they were using Chinooks to move
things back and forth when the islands cut off.
During Hurricane Helene, there are thousands
of bridges out. So there was no way for Chinooks
to go to every single cutoff area in that mountainous
and highly elevated terrain. So drones were using
a delivery drone, an agricultural drone that
was capable of carrying a heavier capacity was
what was the easiest way to get supplies to and
from these areas that were cut off. I know we've
seen some areas were using like a inflatable
rafts across the river with a rope. That rope
can get cut and go downriver and all those supplies
are gone, but a drone is just going to easily
pick up a hundred pounds to and from every single
time. They're built that way. And we're talking
to Chris Lewis who is the founder and grand poobah
of vetsdrones .org and you're in North Carolina
so Being able to use drones as a result of the
damage done by Helene in North Carolina had to
be really satisfying to be able to help the community,
which I think is another thing veterans want
to do. We want to serve. This is kind of an interesting
way to serve your community, isn't it? Absolutely.
Born and raised in Louisiana, grew up right outside
of New Orleans. I moved to North Carolina just
about 20 years ago now after Hurricane Katrina.
You thought you got away from it all, didn't
you? Yeah, you'd think so, yeah. Well, no, I
chased it, so I don't know. But it's a passion
project of mine, right? The first year I got
in the industry, ended up down responding for
Hurricane Dorian in a commercial. aspect, right?
Doing the power line inspections and then Hurricane
Ian and Ida, same thing, commercial aspect with
a little bit of humanitarian sprinkled in doing
cell towers, capture down there too. And then
disaster surveys as well. Post -Helene, we've
been up there since directly after the storm.
Since it's in the state, we had a huge Huge support
network from fellow veterans across the state
was sent there by the National Guard Association
The United States Veterans Corps out of Raleigh
was a massive support network where we landed
on the ground as the Scouts being the drone pilots,
right? We're first ones in we have the technology
we're able to go and live off the land for for
weeks at a time and then the logistics network
of veterans just started flooding in. We set
up shop right just north of Spruce Pine, North
Carolina which we still have a brick and mortar
office today and then began once the search and
rescue operations ended we began mapping the
area to further assess the the effectiveness
of the assets that were being deployed by the
18th Airborne Corps, active duty army on Title
10 action, the North Carolina National Guard,
Tennessee National Guard, I believe Kentucky
National Guard was down there as well, and then
the massive amount of veteran volunteers that
showed up at the camp that we had set up just
north of Spruce Pine on a fellow veteran's property.
We're using the term drone which is sort of like
saying Kleenex instead of tissue paper, right?
There's a zillion different types of configurations
and models of drones in the commercial space
when you're doing these different types of inspections.
How big are these drones? How costly are these
drones? What capabilities do these drones have?
Can you fill us in a little, Chris? So some of
the smaller UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, will
be purely for data collection. You can go into
some of the larger ones for agricultural and
delivery operations. The data collection drones
will cost between $2 ,000 and $40 ,000, really,
depending on the type of data you're doing and
collecting. And if it has an interchangeable
sensor payload on there, those sensors can range
between $4 ,000 and $12 ,000 just for the sensor
alone, let alone the drone to fly it. The agricultural
drones will range between 20 and 60 thousand.
They're much larger. You need a higher level
of licensing per state to be able to spread and
spray different chemicals. So you have to get
your part 137 and your pesticide spraying license
for each individual state to be able to get into
that. Then there's the fixed wing drones that
are used for long range beyond visual line of
sight mapping. and corridor mapping based off
the needs of the client or the use case you're
diving into. For Helene in particular, we mapped
along the rivers and the mountains, which is
very hard to reach areas. We mostly use quadcopters,
which are the smaller, either Mavic series from
DJI or the larger M300 series, using a mechanical
shutter to do photogrammetry missions. That was
in support of the Appalachian Rebuild Project,
which is a project we helped establish up there
in the mountains to raise money and rebuild some
of the houses and other churches and other infrastructure
that was damaged during the storm. Doing those
mapping missions was very interesting and difficult
because we had to use another layer of technology
called an RTK, a real -time kinetic base station
that attached to the drone itself so that the
drones could fly nap of the earth versus just
flying at a flat altitude. This enables the drone
to be able to see where it is on earth so if
it's flying at 300 feet it will follow the elevation
as it maps instead of flying straight into the
side of a mountain. Never good, never good. No,
I mean we do train veterans and you know not
all of us eat the purple crayons so they do get
crashed from time to time. I bet they do, I bet
they do. As we're coming to the end of the time
here, again I want to thank Chris Lewis of veteranstodrones
.org of taking some time and it's really interesting
to see how this military application is moving
over to the civilian world and that veterans
have a role to play. Now I know you got all kinds
of inquiries because VA put the spotlight on
you. Are you still interested in having vets
reach out to you and how do they do that? Oh,
absolutely. If you go onto the Vets2Drones website,
you can find out how to reach out. There's a
sign up form right there that'll get you onto
one of our onboarding calls. We can start getting
you into the mix. So we'll be providing that
part 107 training for free so you can get licensed.
And then there's a slew of expertise from the
fellow veterans across the industry and instructors
that we hire as well to provide instruction.
Well, we appreciate the time you've given us
today, Chris, and an interesting look into this
growing industry of civilian drone operators
and really sounds like a great opportunity to
veterans. Thanks for your time today. Thank you,
Jim. Appreciate you. Military veterans touch
everyone's life. I'm guessing right now you're
thinking of a veteran, a close friend, relative.
Maybe it's you. Even the toughest of us sometimes
need help but don't know where to turn for support.
You don't need special training to help a veteran
in your life. Even small actions can make a world
of difference. If you know a veteran in crisis,
please call the Veterans Crisis Line 800 -273
-8255. 800 -273 -8255. A message from the U .S.
Department of Veterans Affairs. If you have a
VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans' Appeals,
contact Legal Help for Veterans at 1 -800 -693
-4800. They're experts in handling cases before
the U .S. Court of Appeals for Veterans' claims.
Their number again, 1 -800 -693 -4800. We want
to welcome to Veterans Radio today Rick Berman
who is the executive director of the Ram Veterans
Foundation and the Mercer Family Foundation and
they have something called charitiesforvets .org
that Rick's going to tell us about that I think
is really important for people to know about.
Rick, welcome to Veterans Radio. Thanks so much
Jim. So this started, this Charities for Vets,
I think started in 2022. Tell us as a veterans
advocate, kind of how you got into this and what
problem you saw needed to be solved. Well, I've
had a long history of advocacy on behalf of private
interests ranging from issues in the environmental
area, labor area, financial area, and basically
what I was doing on behalf of clients is correcting
the record in terms of public opinion. You know,
there's a lot of groups out there that have an
agenda and they say things that are untrue or
they take facts and they twist them. And so for
very many years, my job was to, as I say, correct
the record and then to put out information for
the public where they would say, oh, you know,
I never thought of it that way before. I would
give people information that made them think
twice. And I retired from my business two and
a half years ago. And about the time I was retiring
from my business, I was familiar with these groups,
these active groups that are always putting out
information in there. and they're collecting
a lot of money, they're scaring people with all
sorts of doom and gloom and you know contribute
to our organization and we'll stop all that from
happening. And so one day I was just watching
television and I saw a commercial for veterans
or I should say for donors, a commercial for
donors to contribute and they were going to help
veterans. And I thought to myself, you know,
I've seen so many of these groups that over promise
and under deliver. I just wondered if that was
going on in the veteran space. And so I just
did some investigation as I had done many times
before, you know, you look up tax returns, etc.
And I did it for the big organizations. And I
thought, my God, there's a lot of people here
who are contributing to organizations and they
have no idea what people are doing with their
money. And Rebecca Mercer is a friend of mine
and I and she's a great philanthropist and I
went to see Rebecca and I said you ever heard
of this this problem and she said no and I said
you got any interest and she said well as a matter
of fact I have a great uncle who was killed in
France fighting the Nazis and I've always had
a warm spot in my heart for veterans and she
said you know if we can do something about that
let's do it so between Rebecca and I We put up
a million dollars to start this organization
and that meant we had to do the research. We
had to put out information that would create
an awareness among people. We got 60 billboards
when we started out. We put them up in Times
Square and around the country and created some
videos and of course using the power of the internet
gave us an appeal to a lot of people. at the
end of the day we started to raise more money
and our goal was number one to stay focused on
veterans who were not going to have an organization
that rated charities from you know from children's
health to environment issues etc. We're just
going to stay on veterans and I was only going
to do large veteran charities. I mean there's
a lot of them out there as you know you know
you go from wounded warriors to tunnel to towers
and some of these other high -profile groups
and I said let's just do a hundred of these things
we'll do the hundred biggest ones we can find
and we'll put them into categories we're going
to be very straightforward about it we'll say
you know we're going to recommend some then there'll
be some that are highly recommended because they're
really good and then we're going to we're going
to say hey there's a bunch of charities out there
that I wouldn't give my money to and neither
should you And I think that's the the the thing
that hooked me in finding out about charities
for vets org is like Yeah, there's and you hear
about it every year every state, you know, there
are there are scams targeted not only to veterans
but to supporters of veterans and you go like
why are you wasting your money on that scam your
hearts in the right spot your but your pocketbook
isn't and so that's really what you were drilling
in on wasn't it? Yeah and of course I wanted
people to stop giving to those to those groups
but on the other hand I didn't want to just sit
on their checkbook so that's why I said I don't
want you to stop giving I just want you to redirect
your giving and that's why we have the charities
you know about half of the charities that we
rate are in our recommended or highly recommended
category 60 % I would say are are are positive
but 40 % of the hundred are in the not recommended
category and and and that doesn't mean that a
charity that's not recommended on our list doesn't
do any good work but they typically don't do
it as efficiently as they should there's a you
know scams are one thing and there as you say
there's plenty of it it's hard to see a scam
though especially if the smaller one, because
reporting is not that great. The Federal Trade
Commission doesn't do a good job. The Internal
Revenue Service does a terrible job. So at the
end of the day, what we end up doing is we say
to people, look, this charity here, maybe it
has 90 % over it. Well, so 10 % of their money
is going to good things. And if you ask them,
well, what have you done? they'll give you the
10 % and you know here's what we did and it sounds
good until you find out that that they're wasting
a whole lot of money on their way to that to
that victory if you will yeah you you've got
two issues here going um in trying to rate folks
right there's sort of the are they are they efficient
um are their administrative costs low and are
they effective yeah which which do you look at
or do you look at them both But that's a great
question. You're very prophetic about our work.
Here's what we started out with. Efficiency is
a lot easier because you're really looking at
math. I look at state fundraising reports. I
look at their IRS, of course, is where most of
the information comes from. and I can tell you
you know because two and two is four all day
long and you just look at it you can add stuff
up and and you know people people come back to
me and they say how can you do that you know
how can you rate us that way and I say it's just
math and um and I'm not picking winners and losers
I'm just calling balls and strikes if you will
and you're either over the plate or you're not
so that's the efficiency that you mentioned effectiveness
Jim is very, very difficult because there's no
way to have a simple template like you could
have for efficiency. You can't just look at someone's
IRS form and see if they're effective. So in
the latter part of this year, for the first time,
I'm going to put my toe in the water on effectiveness.
And we are going to start coming up. I have some
ideas. I don't want to announce them as such
because we may change them along the way. but
we are going to get into the effectiveness business.
Well, I think that's excellent. The efficiency
math, you know, if you will, and you're a guy
familiar and comfortable with numbers, is sort
of black and white. And as you say, they can
call you up and complain about the rating, but
you say, look at your numbers, it's math. And
you're getting that from what I'll call open
sources, right? Right. There are IRS form 990
and this is their tax returns and maybe things
on their own website that they publish, maybe
things that they report to the state attorney
generals. So that's all open source. They can't
be very critical to the organization about that,
I suspect. Or once they are critical, they quickly
back away. Is that what you've been experiencing?
Yeah, and of course you can still game the system
if you're looking to do that if you're the charity
But we look a little tighter at it for instance
There's something called joint cost accounting
where people are able to hide their overhead
By saying that what they're doing is educating
people And without getting into the weeds on
it We don't allow people to spend very much money
on what we'll call joint cost accounting where
they're hiding their overhead there's always
a little bit of it that goes on but if you're
if you're over the line as far as we're concerned
and we do draw some lines as to how much is too
much then we will negatively it will downgrade
organizations so yes it's just math I went through
the website and I do see that you draw some lines
about what how much should or shouldn't be spent
on administrative overhead like that sort of
thing. Can you talk a little bit about the lines
that you draw? Yeah. Well, for instance, if you
on fundraising, if the fundraiser is making more
money than the charity is off of a particular
campaign, we say they're not recommended. If
you've got more than 25 % of your budget Devoted
to overhead more than 25 percent. We say you're
not recommending And and mind you there are charities
out there where their overhead is under 10 percent
And so when I see a charity that's got 50 percent
overhead or 60 percent over it I think you know
There's no reason that this thing can't be managed
properly and and again, it's not necessarily
a scam But there is a lot of people who are running
these organizations who shouldn't be running
a convenience store They're just not that good
at running a business. And we know that's true
about all sorts of institutions where people
are managing more money than they have any knowledge
of managing. So the fundraising, the 25 % overhead,
maybe you have too much money in the bank. People
are giving you money and you're keeping it in
reserve for some rainy day. That's what I heard
somebody tell me once in the early stages of
this. you know he had five times his budget in
reserves and I said why do you have so much money
there people are giving you the money to spend
on veterans and you're putting it in the bank
so to speak and he says it's a rainy day it's
a rainy day fund he said and I said well you
know for some of these disabled veterans it's
raining every day so how about spending the money
and so if you've got more than three years worth
of your budget and reserve we will downgrade
people for that. And that may be, I just hinted
at something that may be the most important fact.
If you look at other rating agencies, there are
some other rating agencies out there that rate
charities of every kind. Now, of course, we're
just doing veterans, and we're only doing 100
veterans, veteran charities. But what they do
is that they grade these organizations, whatever
kind of organization they're grading. there's
an averaging component to their algorithm. So
if you're good in one area and you're bad in
another area, they average it out by some formula
that they have and so now you get a middling
grade. You got an A here and an F here so you
get a C. Now you're sounding like my high school
geometry teacher here. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So,
I mean, and everybody's familiar with that. You
know, you do well one area, you do well another.
Well, with us, we decided that that wasn't the
way to go. If we had these main factors, and
if somebody's got excessive overhead, but they're
good at all these other areas, we're not going
to average it. We're going to say if you got
excessive overhead, you fail. And so we have
a pass fail system for every one of the factors
that we use in our judging. And if you fail in
any one of those factors, you hit the not recommended
category. So we're talking to Rick Berman who's
the executive director For Ram Veterans Foundation,
which is spearheading with the Mercer Family
Foundation a interesting website called charities
for vets org that ranks the top hundred veteran
focused charities in the country and One of the
things that I also liked not only is that you
draw lines but you're willing to say, you know,
name names if you will. Hey, here's the recommended,
here's the not recommended. You actually have
a screen that says examples of waste and abuse.
And when I'm looking at these, one of the things
that sort of comes to my mind is there's a lot
of similarity in names or confusing names where
I think I'm doing a national organization, maybe,
you know, one of the VSOs, Veterans Service Organizations,
but I'm thinking, I bet there's somebody else.
Have you bumped into that that some of this is
name confusion as to which charity I'm giving
to? You know absolutely and you know a lot of
the people who give the charities are older people
and it's easy for them to get screwed up by thinking
that they're given to one and they're actually
given to another. The brand confusion is rampant
and actually you can see some of that on our
website but you know I once looked up this is
a year or two ago I once looked up how many organizations
had wounded warriors in their name and there
were 57 organizations that had wounded warriors
in their name could be wounded warriors of Detroit
or a lot of variations so sure you're right you're
right on that one Jim No, I was searching for
the right word, but you used it. It's brand confusion.
Geez, is the Disabled Veterans National Foundation,
which is on your list of examples of waste and
abuse, is that DAV? I read it again. I said,
well, that's not DAV. I mean, it's easy for even
those paying attention to get confused, the Purple
Heart Veterans Foundation. I don't think that's
the... Purple Heart Legion. I think that's something
else, you know, so You've got done a hundred
of these and there are probably thousands because
Your criteria was what two million in or something
in in annual giving or receiving it's now three
million three million or more Okay There's so
many small ones. It's ridiculous. Yeah What advice
do you give folks who go, well, I don't see this
on your list, but that doesn't mean anything
other than it's not big enough to get rated.
That's right. And I might have even missed some
big ones. You know, every so often we'll find
one that we didn't know existed. But that's the
problem. Someone told me once they had done the
research and that there were 45 ,000 veterans
organizations. or organization with veterans
in their name that doesn't surprise me that that
number shocking number but i go yeah that's probably
yeah and a lot of where these mom and pop operations
were and people with a good heart i'm not saying
everybody does this you know for for criminal
reasons uh people with a good heart they start
one of these in fact i get a lot of people from
these small ones who ask if we would please rate
them because we're doing a lot of advertising
and they'd like to be on our website And I tell
them, look, I don't have the bandwidth to go
after all these groups. I want to just go after
the ones that are big enough to be making a difference.
Well, and I see some of these that you've rated
combined, and it's probably a marketer's dream,
right? Let's combine veterans and dogs. Everybody
likes that. And you've got a few of those like,
hey, they're... the lines we draw that some of
these aren't good because they've got too much
spend too much here or there notwithstanding
they're plucking two of your heartstrings dogs
and veterans you got it yeah there are there
are several service dogs that organizations for
veterans yep did as you went through and you
do this and continue to refine it what has surprised
you um Well, in a positive way, one of the things
that surprised me is that some people have called
me up after we, you know, they discovered that
we're rating them and we're rating them poorly.
They've said, okay, we understand why you rated
us poorly. And we think that we could probably
change the way we do business. And we'd like
to get into a different category of, you know,
recommended and I say, you know, one of the things
that we have, it's a signature of our group is
that I will take any appeal. any reasonable appeal
and if you make that case we will in fact change
the ratings and so I've actually done that two
or three times. So that was a good thing. It
surprised me that people were willing and supposed
to just getting nasty about it. The flip side
of that is that there have been some very nasty
people who have been angry over the fact that
we rated them the way that we did. And I said,
look, you know, that goes back to what we talked
about earlier. I said, look, it's just math.
And you know, they'll say, well, you know, you're
looking at it incorrectly. There are some people
who say overhead should not be a factor. I say,
well, you can make that case if you want to.
But if you're wasting money, that's the first
place I'm going to see it is overhead. And if
you want to make the case, you know, someone
will say, well, we have to pay excessive salaries
to get good people. I say, That's not the case.
I mean, I'm doing this for free. I don't, I don't
take a salary. There are people who will do that.
And then there are people who are getting $500
,000 a year. Well, if you're getting, you know,
six figure salaries, you're going to have high
overhead unless you've got really high revenues.
And if you think the only way you can run this
is with very expensive staff, well, it's your
choice, but I'm going to report it as such. yeah
absolutely and particularly all of those small
charities in that 45 ,000 number or so there's
plenty of them that are 100 % volunteer that
that you know every I don't they don't collect
more than 40 50 100 200 grand a year but it all
goes right back out the door so when you get
just because you got big doesn't mean you get
to be live lavishly right right I mean you know
fancy Office buildings. I mean there's a lot
of ways to spend money So Rick as you go forward
here, and you're kind of gonna dip your toe into
effectiveness That'll be an interesting challenge
and and when you get that up and running We'd
love to talk to you about that sort of How you
set the bar how he may make some of these determinations,
but as we wrap up here What advice would you
give? not only veterans but friends of veterans
who are donating to these causes what advice
would you give them before they write that check?
Well of course not everybody has the capacity
to do their own research so I would like them
to say at least if they're thinking of a charity
that we are already grading to just go to our
website you know that's another that's another
distinguishing feature is that our ratings are
for free there's no fee there's no subscription
you just get on the internet and there it is
and we're updating it on a very regular basis
so i would say go to our website and see if it's
there now some people have called me up or emailed
me and say could you please rate this charity
for me and it's not on our list and i typically
say look here's how you rate it you know and
and and sometimes if i've got nothing better
to do with my time which is not too often i will
look at the charity just do a superficial rating
and I'll just go back and say well they look
like they're pretty decent people or otherwise
so there's not much I can tell people I'm not
going to tell people to go and do their own research
on the you know with tax returns because if you
can read a tax return you don't need my advice
to tell you to go find it no it for most people
that we don't have the time we don't have the
expertise the patience to do all the homework.
That's why charitiesforvets .org is so important.
I want to thank Rick Berman for his time today
and for the good work that Ram Veterans Foundation
and Mercer Family Foundation are funding through
this effort. Rick, I really appreciate you explaining
this to us today. Jim, it's been my pleasure.
So as to tell you, I think after that interview
that veteransradio .org is a 501c3 nonprofit.
We don't have any big paid hosts like myself
or Dale and the team is primarily all veterans
and all volunteers. So if you want to support
our efforts here at Veterans Radio, you can feel
comforted that the money's really going to the
mission and the mission is to be the voice of
American veterans, tell important stories. Get
forward interesting ideas those sorts of things
that you've been listening to here on Veterans
Radio You know, we have some great local sponsors
who also meet the test of being good charitable
organizations like the Vietnam Veterans of America
Charles S Kettles chapter 310 in Ann Arbor VFW,
Graf O 'Hare Post 423, the American Legion, Erwin
Preskin Post 46, along with those like the National
Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, NVBDC.
Those are organizations, again, charities that
you can count on, charities you can rely on,
and we'd encourage you to look at them. But we
also have had a lot of good sponsors who are
not in the charity category. Unfortunately, they
spend some of their hard -earned profits supporting
things like Veterans Radio. Some of those would
be Kearns Brothers, Nader Builders, J &B Painting
and Coating Specialists, Arbor Avenue Private
Wealth, Trillomed, Aerostrategies, Cornerstone.
Real Estate, these are all folks who supported
our Radio on the River event, which was really
successful and will keep us going here for a
while. And in that group of supporters included
folks who are non -profits, you should look at
like Fisher House of Michigan, Bob Woodruff Foundation.
Those kind of people, again, realize the work,
the good work we're doing and the work. that's
necessary to do to keep the things going, keep
veteran stories moving forward, give you information
on veteran benefits, for example, bring you maybe
a unbiased, unpolitical view of what's going
on at VA and that's kind of why we're supported
by the Ann Arbor health care system, VA health
care system. We wouldn't get that support if
we were not giving it to you straight down the
middle and that's really what Dale and I and
the team tries to do is bring you information
you can use but also filter it in a way that
it's useful that it's not biased but instead
creates an opportunity for you to look into something
you know I'm thinking of programs that we did,
for example, on VA acupuncture that folks didn't
know VA offered, and actually one of our board
members used it recently and told us that, hey,
my pain reduced by 50 percent. That's astounding.
So again, we're veterans who use services, we're
veterans who need this information and benefits,
trying to understand, you know, what can be a
complex system, and certainly under this current
administration, it's been confusing at times
of what's really going on. We don't rant. We
don't give you the politics. We try to give you
the facts and the information that you need as
a veteran or a friend of a veteran in understanding
what services are available, what information
might be out there, what business opportunities
might be out there. Hey, is this Vets to Drones?
Is that an industry maybe I should get into?
We've talked to the folks who run veteran driving
schools. We talked to veteran franchisees like
PuraClean about why veterans make good business
owners and good franchisees. So there's a whole
bunch of really solid reasons to listen in every
week to Veterans Radio, whether it's on your
local station. or on the internet where it's
maybe sometimes more convenient for you to get
to. But it's important for us to you to know
that we're one of those veteran charities that
really takes our mission seriously and we're
good stewards of the funds that are provided
to us to keep this whole process going. So. appreciate
you listening in to Veterans Radio today. I hope
you enjoyed both of these stories on vets to
drones and raiding veteran charities. Come on
back next week and until next time on Veterans
Radio, you are dismissed.